"Ice Drift (Stalker Mix)"

Workshop

Artists:

Up to this point, Daniel Martin McCormick's brashness has defined his Ital project: he populates his tracks with samples of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, sprawling, quasi-political dialogue, and cheap synth noise. He is stridently, unapologetically, a dance music outsider, which makes his pairing with Berlin label Workshop-- a label that has made its name on toolsy, low-key house tracks by insiders like Kassem Mosse and Move D-- an odd one.

On A side "Ice Drift (Stalker Mix)" McCormick splits the difference between his aesthetic and Workshop's. He demurs during the track's opening minutes, laying down a tidy chord progression on an electric piano over a shallow, skittering snare. Harsh, reverberating noise begins to accumulate, though, and be the track's end he can't help himself, digging hard into the keyboard groove and piling bratty noise on top of it until the groove is all but lost, the track's friendly aid-the-DJ vibe scattered. It's refreshing to hear Martin-McCormick work within more traditional confines, and perhaps even more refreshing to hear him eventually ignore them.